An Indo-Western blend
By Sadhna Shanker Published: February 7, 2007
NEW DELHI: Aregular on the runway, it also is seen everywhere from teenage parties to university lecture halls, casual lunches to official meetings. The Indian kurti, or short tunic, has emerged as a strong part of the Indian fashion scene over the last few years.
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“It is the elegant blend of Indo-Western that attracts customers; the Indian cut with traditional work placed in unusual ways or Western patterns with Indian work,” said Manik Dhingra, who runs Sprucee, a boutique in New Delhi’s posh Khan Market, with his wife, Sapna. The shop has been selling kurtis since it opened three years ago.
The kurti is a tunic-style garment that varies from just covering the hips to a little above the knees. A shorter version of the traditional knee-length kurta, it permits air circulation between the garment and the skin.
Team the kurti with jeans, skirts or capris and there is the fusion of an Indian look with an international sensibility. “It hides all your flaws and highlights only the assets,” is how Pramilla Sharan, a government employee, described it.
For younger girls in traditional families or more conservative parts of the country, kurtis have become an acceptable alternative to Western clothes. “It is comfortable and doesn’t highlight the figure like T-shirts do,” said Shruti Maheshwari, who runs Ethni City, a boutique in the upscale Gokhale Marg section of Lucknow.
Meha Chandra, a ninth grader at an private school in Delhi, added, “Tees cannot be worn as decorations, but kurtis can. They look more formal, but are as comfortable.”
The versatile garment comes in an overwhelming range of colors, patterns and materials, embellished with intricate embroidery, beadwork, traditional metallic thread trim and simple mirror work. The cool cotton kurtis remain the all-time favorite, but younger wearers like muslin, silk, chiffon and transparent kurtis of georgette. Prices range from 200 rupees, or about $4.50, to 3,500 rupees or more, depending on the quality of the fabric and the workmanship.
Younger wearers also are making their own variations — chopping off the sleeves, fashioning off-the-shoulder variations or just wearing a sheer kurti over a spaghetti-strap top or a bustier.
The garment’s Indo-Western look has made kurtis popular with Indian women living abroad. Sudha Iyer, who works for a research company in Minnesota, said: “They look flattering. I can wear them all over the place — at work or otherwise.”
Shashi Nim, who works for a software company in Singapore, has an emotional response to the garment: “I wear kurtis because they are Indian, colorful and I feel close to my country when I wear them.”
And Pritika Chatterjee, who is working on her doctorate at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, said, “I love the East-meets-West concept and am charmed by the manageable length.”
The kurti has broken into the international scene, with stores like Gap, Banana Republic and Nike selling the garment or variations of it for around $40.
“The demand is going up as the kurti has a casual, good-looking style, which is funky as well,” says Vineet Agarwal of Mexx Holding International, which selects clothes exclusively for the Mexx clothing chain of Amsterdam.
The kurti has been worn in India for centuries and the men’s knee-length style was one of the first versions. “Kurti is the modern form of the traditional ‘fatua’ that had a pocket in the middle, which was popular with men in eastern India, especially Bengal,” said Raju Sarkar, who runs a chain of Chinese restaurants in Delhi.
While women today, regardless of age, are enthusiastic about the kurti, men seem to be divided about the contemporary versions. The kurti, or short version, “gets stuck somewhere between a kurta and a shirt,” said Parikshat Jha, a first-year student of political science in Delhi University.
But Vaibhav Jha, a second-year student of physics at the university, differed: Kurtis “are traditional, but not orthodox and despite being ethnic they are trendy.”
Even retailers disagree. Maheshwari of Ethni City said demand from men younger than 30 has decreased, but Dhingra of Sprucee said, “They are slowly catching up with men, and we do get a lot of queries for kurtis from foreigners who drop by.”
Among women, when Bollywood actresses began wearing the shorter feminine version of the garment a few years ago, the kurti really gained in popularity. “It started out with the middle classes as a long top that heavy women wore, but now the clientele is primarily young women,” Maheshwari said.